SULTANS AND VOIVODAS IN THE 16TH C. GIFTS AND INSIGNIA* Prof. Dr. Maria Pia PEDANI** Abstract The territorial extent of the Ottoman Empire did not allow the central government to control all the country in the same way. To understand the kind of relations established between the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states scholars took into consideration also peace treaties (sulhnâme) and how these agreements changed in the course of time. The most ancient documents were capitulations (ahdnâme) with mutual oaths, derived from the idea of truce (hudna), such as those made with sovereign countries which bordered on the Empire. Little by little they changed and became imperial decrees (berat), which mean that the sultan was the lord and the others subordinate powers. In the Middle Ages bilateral agreements were used to make peace with European countries too, but, since the end of the 16th c., sultans began to issue berats to grant commercial facilities to distant countries, such as France or England. This meant that, at that time, they felt themselves superior to other rulers. On the contrary, in the 18th and 19th centuries, European countries became stronger and they succeeded in compelling the Ottoman Empire to issue capitulations, in the form of berat, on their behalf. The article hence deals with the Ottoman’s imperial authority up on the vassal states due to the historical evidences of sovereignty. Key Words: Ottoman Empire, voivoda, gift, insignia. 1. Introduction The territorial extent of the Ottoman Empire did not allow the central government to control all the country in the same way. From 1363, when John V Paleologo made a alliance with Murad I, the number of regions that enjoyed * This paper is a revised version of Maria Pia Pedani, Doni e insegne del potere concessi dai sultani ottomani ai principi rumeni nel Cinquecento, in L’Italia e l’Europa Centro-Orientale attraverso i secoli. Miscellanea di studi di storia politico-diplomatica, a cura di Cristian Luca, Gianluca Masi, Andrea Piccardi, Braila (Romania)- Venezia 2004, pp. 117-132. ** University Ca’Foscari of Venice. TH Sultans And Voivodas In The 16 C. Gıfts Anbd Insignia 194 different degrees of autonomy increased insomuch that in the course of the 16th century there was a ring of countries dependent in different ways from Istanbul. The bonds that united these regions and vassal states to the capital varied, such as the religion of their inhabitants and rulers. There were Christians, such as the voivoda of Walachia and that of Moldavia, but there were also Muslim princes, such as the Sheriff in Mecca or the Tatar khan, who were also entrusted to take over the succession of the Empire if Osman’s dynasty would have come to an end. Some regions had above all a strategic-military value such as those near Hapsburg territories. Kurdistan was the bastion of the Sunni Ottoman Empire against those who were considered Shiia heretics. Other areas had, above all, an economic value, such as the Republic of Dubrovnik: Ottomans took advantage from its market and port and, as a result, they preferred to control an independent city for centuries rather than to take direct possession of another small piece of land. Mecca and Medina provided an international acknowledgement for the sultan’s legitimacy: he protected the pilgrims and was officially ‘the servant of the Holy Cities’. At the same time the Venetian Republic continued for centuries to pay tribute to the sultan for the islands of Cyprus and Zante. Other regions, such as Albanian mountains, part of Montenegro as well as part of Lebanon lived in a state of more nominal than effective subjection: to establish a direct rule there would have involved more costs than profit for Istanbul1. The quantity and worth of tributes and diplomatic gifts, given and received, and their symbolic value, as well as the rank of the envoys who brought them, were a sign of different degrees of subjection. For instance, in the second half of the 16th century, the Muslim Tatar Khan paid no money, but had to take part in the sultan’s war campaigns with his men. On the contrary, the Roman emperor paid every year 30,000 pieces of gold. Other Christian lands did the same: Transylvania used to send 10,000 pieces of gold (and, after 1575, 15,000), Dubrovnik 12,500 and Venice 8,000 for the island of Cyprus (until the Cyprus war), and another 500 for the island of Zante (after 1573 increased to 1,500, until 1684). Notwithstanding these tributes, the Republic of Venice and the Hapsburgs were free and independent. On the contrary, the Tatar Khan or the Christian voivodas of Transylvania, Moldavia and Walachia were forced to follow the politics of Istanbul2. 1 Donald Egdar Pitcher, An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire, Leiden 1972, pp. 129-131; Gilles Veinstein, Les provinces balkaniques (1606-1774), in Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, under the direction of Robert Mantran, Paris 1989, pp. 287-340. 2 Mihai Maxim, Nouveaux documents turcs sur les cadeaux protocolaires (peşkeş) et les insignes du pouvoir (hükümet alâmetleri), in Mihai Maxim, Romano-Ottomanica. Essays & Documents from the Turkish Archives, İstanbul 2001, pp. 70-151, in particular p. 75; Maria Pia Pedani, Le prime ‘sottoscrizioni a coda’ dei tesorieri Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi The Journal Of International Social Research Volume 1/1 Fall 2007 195 PEDANI, Maria Pia Between the 16th and the 17th c., in the area between the Aegean sea and the Carpathians, there were several Ottoman provinces: the eyâlet of Cezayir (i.e. Cezayiri Bahri Sefid, the Aegean island, from about 1537-38), Rumeli (from about 1365), Bosna (from about 1525), Kanije (from 1600), Budin (from 1541), Eğri (from 1596), Tımıshvar (from 1552) and Silistre (from about 1599). The river Danube divided Rumeli from a Northern region where Ottomans ruled in a different way. Eflâk, Boĝdan and Erdel, that is to say Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, were vassal states. Sultans could appoint or remove their princes (called voivodas), ask for support during military campaigns, determine their foreign policy and receive a tribute. In the course of the 16th c. Istanbul claimed also the right of having armed garrisons in some stronghold of Walachia and Moldavia, but not of Transylvania. For about a century these countries gave up independence for submission and obedience. Scholars are still discussing the date of the beginning and end of this process. According to Viorel Panaite in Walachia this process began at the time of Mircea the old (1386-1418) and finished in 1462 under Radu the Beautiful; in Moldavia it started in 1455-56 and ended in 1538, while in Transylvania it began in 1528, when János Zápolya kissed the sultan’s hands and ended when John Sigismund Zápolya paid homage to him on 29 June 1566.3 To understand the kind of relations established between the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states scholars took into consideration also peace treaties (sulhnâme) and how these agreements changed in the course of time. The most ancient documents were capitulations (ahdnâme) with mutual oaths, derived from the idea of truce (hudna), such as those made with sovereign countries which bordered on the Empire. Little by little they changed and became imperial decrees (berat), which mean that the sultan was the lord and the others subordinate powers. In the Middle Ages bilateral agreements were used to make peace with European countries too, but, since the end of the 16th c., sultans began to issue berats to grant commercial facilities to distant countries, such as France or England. This meant that, at that time, they felt themselves superior to other rulers. On the contrary, in the 18th and 19th centuries, European countries became stronger and they succeeded in compelling the Ottoman Empire to issue nell’impero ottomano, «Quaderni di Studi Arabi», 8 (1990), pp. 215-228. About the theory of Venetian dependence cfr. the language used in some 16th c. Ottoman documents where the doge is called zâbit (subordinate official) and he must demonstrate “submission and obedience” (itaat ve inkıyad) towards the sultan, Maria Pia Pedani, Dalla frontiera al confine, Roma 2002, pp. 9-10. 3 Viorel Panaite, The Status of the “Kharâj-güzarlar”. A Case Study: Wallachians, Moldavians and Transylvanians in the 15th to 17th centuries, in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilization, ed. by Kemal Çiçek, 4 voll., Ankara 2000, vol. I, pp. 227-238. Cfr. also Mihai Maxim, Le statut des Pays Roumains envers la Porte ottomane aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècle, in Maxim, Romano-Ottomanica, pp. 23-46. Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi The Journal Of International Social Research Volume 1/1 Fall 2007 TH Sultans And Voivodas In The 16 C. Gıfts Anbd Insignia 196 capitulations, in the form of berat, on their behalf4. 2. Diplomatic gifts (peşkeş) The diplomatic gifts which had always a great symbolic value are also useful to understand the nature of relations established between the Empire and its vassal states. Christian princes of Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania sent presents (peşkeş) to Istanbul, while, at their turn, sultans send them other gifts (irsâliye) and insignia (hükümet alâmetleri) 5. Peşkeş was the name of a gift offered by an inferior authority to a superior one. In 1526 some peşkeşes arrived in Istanbul from Moldavia: they were furs of sable and ermine and dendân-ı mâhi, i.e. "fish teeth". In this context, the word means walrus tusks, even if it may refer also to the more precious ivory of narwhal. At the times of al-Bîrûnî and Mamûd al-Kâšġarî, both these items were already collected by the inhabitants of Northern countries and sold to Volga Bulgarians; thus, they went southwards, together with other goods, and we know that some of them arrived as far as Mecca.